Trivia

The first actor to receive ten Academy Award nominations.

Joan Crawford and she had feuded for years, some of it instigated by publicists and studio heads. During the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Davis had a Coca-Cola machine installed on the set due to Crawford's affiliation with Pepsi (she was the widow of Pepsi's CEO). Joan got her revenge by putting weights in her pockets when Davis had to drag her across the floor during certain scenes. Crawford died in 1977, and ten years later Davis spoke more freely about her. In a 1987 interview with Bryant Gumbel, she said that Crawford acted professionally on the set since she showed up on time and knew her lines, and that the rift happened only after she campaigned against Davis, making sure she didn't win her third Oscar. That same year, she told Barbara Walters that she was hurt and angry by Crawford's actions. However, she also added that she won't tarnish Crawford's accomplishments: "She came a long way from a little girl from where she came from. This, I will never take away from her".

According to her August 1982 "Playboy" magazine interview, in her youth she posed nude for an artist, who carved a statue of her that was placed in a public spot in Boston, MA. After the interview appeared, Bostonians searched for the statue in vain. The statue, four dancing nymphs, was later found in the possession of a private Massachusetts collector.

After the song "Bette Davis Eyes" became a hit single, she wrote letters to singer Kim Carnes and songwriters Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, asking how they knew so much about her. One of the reasons she loved the song is that her grandson heard it and thought it "cool" that his grandmother had a hit song written about her.

She was elected as first female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in October 1941. She resigned less then two months later, publicly declaring herself too busy to fulfill her duties as president while angrily protesting in private that the Academy had wanted her to serve as a mere figurehead.

While she was the star pupil at John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School in New York, another of her classmates was sent home because she was "too shy". It was predicted that this girl would never make it as an actress. The girl was Lucille Ball.

Described the last three decades of her life as a"my macabre period". She hated being alone at night and found growing older "terrifying".

Was one of two actresses (with Faye Dunaway) to have two villainous roles ranked in the American Film Institute's 100 Years of The Greatest Heroes and Villains, as Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes (1941) at #43 and as Baby Jane Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) at #44.

In 1982 she was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the Defense Department's highest civilian award, for founding and running the Hollywood Canteen during World War II.

Was honored by James Stewart, Angela Lansbury, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy when she received her Kennedy Centre Honors.

When she died in 1989, she reportedly left an estate valued between $600,000 and $1 million, consisting mainly of a condominium apartment she owned in West Hollywood 50% of her estate went to her son, Michael Merrill, and the remaining 50% went to her secretary and companion, Kathryn Sermak. Her daughter, Barbara Merrill aka B.D. Hyman, was left nothing due to her lurid book about life with her mother. Davis spent the majority of her wealth supporting her mother, three children, and four husbands.

While filming Death on the Nile (1978), aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith.

Was originally offered the role of fiery pianist Sandra Kovac in The Great Lie (1941). Instead, she took the less showy role of Maggie Patterson and suggested her good friend Mary Astor for the role of Sandra--she thought it would help boost Astor's career, which had been hurt by a very nasty custody battle, in 1936, with her ex-husband. Astor went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.

On 7/19/2001 director Steven Spielberg won the Christie's auction of her 1938 Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel (1938) for $578,000. He then gave it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Pictured on a 42¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the "Legends of Hollywood" series, issued 9/18/2008.

The highest-paid woman in the US in 1942.

The first actor of any gender to earn seven, eight, nine and ten Academy Award nominations in the acting categories.

Nominated for an Academy Award five years in a row,--1939-43. She shares the record for most consecutive nominations with Greer Garson.

Her co-star from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Joan Crawford once said in an interview that she and Davis had nothing in common. In reality, they had a handful of similarities in their personal lives. They both had fathers who abandoned their families at a young age; both rose from poverty to success while breaking into films during the late 1920s and early 1930s; both had siblings and mothers who milked them financially once they became famous; both became Oscar-winning leading ladies; both were staunch liberal Democrats and feminists; both had four husbands (both were widowed once and divorced three times); both adopted children and both had daughters who wrote lurid books denouncing them as bad mothers.

Turned down the role of Rose Sayer in The African Queen (1951) due to pregnancy.

In the early 1980s, she was once asked by an interviewer if she had any regrets about her career. In answer, she remarked that the only regret she had was that she was never able to appear in a movie with Clark Gable, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, or James Stewart during the days of the studio system because Warner Bros. never did "loan outs".

When she first came to Hollywood as a contract player, Universal Pictures wanted to change her name to Bettina Dawes. She informed the studio that she refused to go through life with a name that sounded like "Between the Drawers".

Suffered a stroke and had a mastectomy in 1983.

Was very active in leading Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, due to the fact that in her childhood she was a decorated Girl Scout.

Awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Picture at 6225 Hollywood Blvd. ; and for Television at 6335 Hollywood Blvd.

For many years, she was a popular target for impressionists but she was perplexed by the often used phrase "Pee-tah! Pee-tah! Pee-tah!". She said she had no idea who Pee-tah was and had never even met anyone by that name.

Filmed a television pilot for a show to be called "The Bette Davis Show" (1965), which was not picked up for series by any of the television networks, but which was broadcast as a television movie entitled The Decorator (1965).

Her second husband Arthur Farnsworth died after a fall on Hollywood Boulevard in which he took a blow to the head. He had shortly before banged his head on a train between Los Angeles and New England, followed by another fall down the stairway at their New Hampshire home. This is the only marriage of hers that ended in death, not divorce.

Davis, whom many critics and cinema historians rank as the greatest American movie actress ever, sent a letter to Meryl Streep early in her career. She told Streep that she felt she was her successor as The First Lady of the American Screen. She also admired Debra Winger and Sissy Spacek.

Publicly, she took a tough stance on her father Harlow Davis, because he had divorced her mother when she was seven, and she and her mother and sister had called themselves "The Three Musketeers". She didn't even attend his funeral, because it was on the east coast, and she was on the west coast filming her Academy Award winning performance in Jezebel (1938). However, her private scrapbook, which was found after her death, revealed that she held a soft spot for him. She had saved congratulatory cards and notes that he had sent her when she appeared on stage, and when she won her first Academy Award for Dangerous (1935). She also financed her son Michael Merrill's education to become a lawyer, just as her father had been.

Voted the 10th Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Entertainment Weekly".

In Marked Woman (1937), she is forced to testify in court after being worked over by some Mafia hoods. Disgusted with the tiny bandage supplied by the makeup department, she left the set, had her own doctor bandage her face more realistically, and refused to shoot the scene any other way.

On her sarcophagus is written "She did it the hard way". She credited her writer/director from All About Eve (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz for coming up with the line.

Her performance as Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) is ranked #5 on "Premiere" magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006.

Smoked 100 Vantage cigarettes a day, even after suffering four strokes in 1983.

Bette Davis had been nominated for Best Actress for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), which also starred Joan Crawford. If Bette had won, it would have set a record number of wins for an actress. According to the book "Bette & Joan--The Divine Feud" by Shaun Considine, the two had a lifelong mutual hatred, and a jealous Crawford actively campaigned against Davis for winning Best Actress, and even told Anne Bancroft that if Anne won and was unable to accept the Award, Joan would be happy to accept it on her behalf. According to the book on Oscar night Davis was standing in the wings of the theatre waiting to hear the name of the winner. When it was announced that Bancroft had won Best Actress for The Miracle Worker (1962), Davis felt an icy hand on her shoulder as Crawford said, "Excuse me, I have an Oscar to accept".

While touring the talk show circuit to promote What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), she told one interviewer that when she and Joan Crawford were first suggested for the leads, Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads." Recalling the story, she laughed at her own expense. The following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!".

She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Jezebel (1938), Now, Voyager (1942), All About Eve (1950) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).

In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Elizabeth Taylor does an exaggerated impression of her saying a line from Beyond the Forest (1949): "What a dump!" In an interview with Barbara Walters, Davis said that in Beyond the Forest (1949), she really did not deliver the line in such an exaggerated manner. She said it in a more subtle, low-key manner, but it has passed into legend that she said it the way Elizabeth Taylor delivered it in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). During the interview, the clip of her delivering the line in Beyond the Forest (1949) was shown to prove that she was correct. However, since people expected her to deliver the line the way Taylor had in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), she always opened her in-person, one-woman show by saying the line in a campy, exaggerated manner: "What . . . a . . . dump!!!". It always brought down the house. "I imitated the imitators", she said.

"LIFE" magazine described her performance in Of Human Bondage (1934) as "probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress".

Played dual roles of twin sisters in two movies: A Stolen Life (1946) and Dead Ringer (1963).

In an interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed her daughter's book, "My Mother's Keeper", was as devastating as her stroke.

Was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture.

After her first picture, she was sitting outside the office of Universal Pictures executive Carl Laemmle Jr. when she overheard him say about her, "She's got as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville. Who wants to get her at the end of the picture?".

Interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, CA, just outside and to the left of the main entrance to the Court of Remembrance.

Had a long-running feud with Miriam Hopkins that started before they even entered films, because of jealousy. They were both stage actresses with the same company, where Hopkins had been the bigger star who first made it to Hollywood to become a star in films. They were both nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in 1935, Davis won and became the bigger star. She won her second Oscar for Jezebel (1938), which had been a flop on Broadway for Hopkins in 1933. Davis had an affair with director Anatole Litvak, who at one point was married to Hopkins, although there have been conflicting reports on whether the affair took place while he was still married to her. They competed with each other for screen time in the two films they acted in together: The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943). Long after Hopkins died, the only good thing Davis said about her was that she was a good actress, but otherwise, she was a "real bitch".

Wrote the book "This 'n That" in response to her daughter's book, "My Mother's Keeper".

Credited George Arliss with giving her her "break" by choosing her as his leading lady in The Man Who Played God (1932).

She considered her debut screen test for Universal Pictures to be so bad that she ran screaming from the projection room.

Attended Cushing Academy; a prep school in Ashburnham, MA. An award in her namesake is given annually to one male and one female scholar-athlete for exceptional accomplishment in both fields.